The covered body of a driver is removed from a freeway sign, where it had landed after being ejected when his car rolled over several times on a Los Angeles freeway on Friday. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)

(Newser)
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Authorities were left in disbelief after a man's body landed on top of a freeway sign following a car crash Friday morning in Los Angeles, Fox 11 reports. "I've never seen anything like this or heard anything like this," a highway patrol spokesperson tells the Los Angeles Times. "It's the first time." The highway patrol received reports of a Ford Fiesta driving recklessly around 7am local time. According to Fox 11, the Fiesta hit another vehicle and rolled. The driver, who wasn't wearing a seatbelt, was launched 20 to 30 feet in the air, landing improbably on top of a nearby freeway sign.

One witness told police that the driver had been passing cars on the right shoulder of the road, reports KTLA. Police say he eventually clipped the rear of a pickup, which caused his own car to spin out of control. The body of the man was covered by authorities but stayed on the sign for approximately three hours until the freeway could be closed to let firefighters remove it. He has been identified as 20-year-old Richard Pananian of Burbank. (In another car accident tragedy, a woman's husband and child were killed—and she lost all memory of them.)